The AM Roundup: New Yorkers Brace for Soda Ban, More

Fizzed: Across New York City, restaurants, bars and movie theaters are bracing for the Bloomberg administration’s ban on large sugary drinks, set to take effect on March 12. For some, that means overhauling glassware and dreaming up new promotions. Others, though, are adopting a wait-and-see approach, forgoing costly changes in the hope that the ban will be overturned in court. WSJ

Diverse judiciary: Re-elected with strong support from women, ethnic minorities and gays, President Barack Obama is moving quickly to change the face of the federal judiciary by the end of his second term, setting the stage for another series of drawn-out confrontations with Republicans in Congress. WP

Alerts in lieu of warrants: Critics say internal police alerts, absent a bona fide warrant, sidestep constitutional protections. Officers act like judges, critics argue, in a process so open to abuse that the police-issued alerts are rarely allowed into the FBI’s fugitive database. Chicago Tribune

Biden on the march: The vice president and black leaders commemorating a famous civil rights march on Sunday said efforts to diminish the impact of African-Americans’ votes haven’t stopped in the years since the 1965 Voting Rights Act added millions to Southern voter rolls. AP

Referral fees: Over the last decade, the wife of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Seamus P. McCaffery – his chief judicial aide – has received 18 payments as referral fees for connecting law firms with clients. Philadelphia Inquirer

DNA patents: Eric Lander — a leader in the human genome project, a scientific adviser to President Obama, and the head of the Broad Institute in Cambridge — argued in a friend-of-the-court brief to the U.S. Supreme Court that patents held by biotechnology company Myriad Genetics are an “insurmountable barrier” to studying DNA, with serious repercussions for medical progress. Boston Globe

About Law Blog

The Law Blog covers the legal arena’s hot cases, emerging trends and big personalities. It’s brought to you by lead writer Jacob Gershman with contributions from across The Wall Street Journal’s staff. Jacob comes here after more than half a decade covering the bare-knuckle politics of New York State. His inside-the-room reporting left him steeped in legal and regulatory issues that continue to grab headlines.

A federal judge in Manhattan rejected a bid by the conservative advocacy group Citizens United to stop New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman from requiring that charities disclose to him their major donors.

Concerns about a gender gap in the legal profession tend to focus on issues like pay, billing rates and who makes partner. A new study by the American Bar Association looks inside the federal courtroom to see who's trying cases.